Bolton Slip Up At Oldham

Bolton were beaten by in-form, but ten-man Oldham as they failed to restore the gap over the chasing pack back to seven points.

Wanderers were again missing Gary Madine, who is now also rated doubtful for Tuesday`s game against Bury.

It`s a game that will be massive regardless of what happens on Easter Monday, whether that would be because Fleetwood and Bradford could both be one point behind us, in a real bottom-clenching situation, or on the positive side, if they both lost, winning that game would take us up.

So, what of Saturday`s game?

It was a weird, scrappy game. The latest idea to replace Madine was to slightly tweak the formation. Josh Vela played behind Adam Le Fondre, while Derik, Jay Spearing and Darren Pratley sat in the three man midfield.

On an awful pitch, which the groundstaff found fit to water further, the ball spent most of the time in Boundary Park`s windy air, which resulted in some poor goal kicking from Mark Howard, with efforts that would have resulted in good scrum position had the sport being rugby league.

Bolton had chances though. Maybe it was just one of those days where if God had an acca on, Oldham was on it.

Twice we hit the bar, through Le Fondre and substitute Chris Long, once in the first minute of second half stoppage time, while Filipe Morais saw an effort cleared off the line, as well as Wanderers being on the wrong side of a goal line clearance.

The sucker punch came with about fifteen minutes to go. Howard pushed a ball into Jay Spearing, and Lee Erwin got the decisive touch ensuring the only goal of the game.

Again, Bolton struggled to break down ten men as Michael Ngoo went off for a second yellow early in the second half.

We still have that four point gap, with three games left, we have less room for error now, but still, it would take a monumental screw-up to blow this.

Star Player

Jay Spearing played well earlier in the game, Oldham weren't really in it until they found a way of stopping his influence.